Vintage Bench Seat for Front Entry gets BEACHY STRIPES

Sorry I've been MIA for the past little while, but with poor little  Finn having Roseola and being SUPER fussy, I've been somewhat preoccupied! I've been craving a project, and this little bench was calling my name at the thrift shop last weekend :).


It started off like this...

I had a picture in my head of the perfect "beach chair" striped material and headed off to our local fabric store to take a look. Nothing. Not even anything remotely like what I was looking for! SO I left empty-handed and headed to the mall (Toby's request.....yes...I know....my little boy likes going to the mall! hehe) As we were leaving Old Navy (needed some onesies for Finny), I spotted this shirt........PERFECT! No....not for Dustin or my dad, or anyone to wear........the perfect stripe for my little bench seat!!!! And at $12, it was cheaper than most of the fabric I was looking at!

So....I chopped the back out of the shirt and cut a piece out of an old white towel to add a little extra padding/strength, and went to work with my staple gun...

Next step.....white paint. My old standby. I dug around some paint cans in the garage and found a bright white semi-gloss latex.....just what I was looking for! For this type of "spindly" job, I always find it's easiest to use those little foam brushes. You know....the kind you find at the dollar store for really cheap. They just seem to get in all the cracks much better than a regular paint brush, and there's no clean-up because they're pretty  much disposable. 

And here it is........a new lease on life.....looking ever so cute... and perfect for my front entry!

And you wonder why I never get anything done!......this is what was going on while I was trying to take these pictures....:)......A crazy horn-tootin', crazy-dancin' (his term), grubby-shirted toddler was all up in my business! As always. ........but I love it ;)

Total price: $15 :)




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My Husband's Hockey Song....PLEASE VOTE

Ok...this is so completely off-topic, ridiculous and crazy, but is there any way some of you lovely ladies would visit this Youtube link and give my husband's song 5 stars??? Pretty please :) :) If he wins, we get $5,000 of free flooring, and I really really want to re-do my basement!!

Youtube Link HERE

I had no idea until just right now that he had even written a song and entered it! How did I miss that?? He made it through to the top 10 finalists! A girl can brag about her husband, right? ;)

To vote, you just have to rate his song on the star rating and it will go through to the tally for the King of Floors.


Thanks so so much!!


These are some pics of Dustin and Toby in downtown Vancouver at the Olympics :)









PS...He's going to have a fit when he sees this post....haha....oh well, so worth it if we win the flooring! ;)

FEATURED by the lovely ROCKY BELLA

What a lovely surprise on a wednesday morning full of sick babies and huge dark circles under my eyes!!! Totally made my morning!

The lovely Karli over at Rocky Bella has featured my little white living room! Go on over to her beautiful blog, if you get a chance, and look around. She is a complete genius at furniture revamps! It doesn't get much better than this PINK side table (you know how I have a thing for pink these days).



Or this amazing China Hutch.






A picture of my poor little sick/teething Finny, sitting here beside me. He still manages to smile in his misery. Such a trooper. I wish I could say the same about myself ;) This lack of sleep is KILLING me!

A pink camellia to brighten my living room

I don't know why, but I've had a pink craving lately. I keep buying pink flowers, wearing pink clothes....obssessing over pink ruffles....that sort of thing. So I decided I needed a big dose of pink in my living room....a bloom that wouldn't die ( I discovered why carnations are so cheap! The start to reek after about 3 days!). Seriously...they smell like an outhouse. Gross!

So I dug out my crusted up old paintbrushes and got busy. I'm still not completely happy with the pink colour ( I had envisioned it a little lighter, but I got a bit out of control with the magenta! Oh well....it's fulfilling my craving for some spring colour in my house. I have a beautiful flowering Camellia bush outside my window...I always wish the blooms would last a little longer! Now they do :)








My little monkeys the other day.....best buds already!


Just for fun....my living room BEFORE picture:

To brighten up the room even more you can get fresh flowers from Order Flowers.

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Gilt Mirror goes WHITE

I've had this mirror in my garage for years, hanging there in all its gold glory... but I just couldn't find the right place in my house for it. Today I decided it was time to come out! A new coat of "Arctic White" paint and it's got a whole new lease on life. And since I'm in a dining room kind of mood...there she hangs :) All swirly and gorgeous on my robin's egg blue wall. Perfect.



Ok...so definitely a little cheesy with me in the picture...but I kind of liked the pop of colour!





ps...this little beauty was another thrift shop find...$3! sweeet!

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A wee bit Irish

So....I'm pretty much Irish. My parents came over from N.Ireland on their honeymoon, and ended up staying in Vancouver. I was so lucky to go back to Ireland every year when I was younger, and we took Toby for his first visit in the summer of 2008. So..I figured since it's St. Paddy's day today...I'll give you a little peek at the "Ol' Sod" :)

We are very lucky to be able to stay at my parents' house (they live there in the summer)...it's very beautiful and has room for everyone :) It was built in the early 1800's and has lots of great character and space for boys to run around! Look how little my Toby is in these pictures! Wow..it goes so fast, doesn't it? *sniff*



So many beautiful, majestic views..


Just *slightly* windblown!



A walk through the "bog"





We had a cozy evening with cousins in their little backyard thatch cottage



A peacock on the roof! :)


A day at the beach....beautiful white sand beaches, but that North Sea is COld!


Happy St. Paddy's day!

Dining Room Hutch Makeover

I FINALLY got my dining hutch finished! And I just can't stop staring at her :) With all her lovely curves and little details, she's come a long way since her orangey-brown original state!

I found her for $12 at my local thrift shop and she's been sitting in my garage, waiting for her makeover for a month. A few coats of paint....first primer, then white, then grey (well, sort of a grey/blue that I mixed up in my garage)....a little distressing and new Anthropologie mercury glass knobs, and there you have her. I was waiting for someone to arrive and help my husband carry her up the stairs, but I surprised myself and found that I've grown a lot stronger lately! It must be carrying my little (big) Finn around all the time! He started off big (10lbs 6oz!) and has been growing steadily ever since. The hutch actually felt quite light, if you can believe that! LOVE the mom muscles! ;)



















Dining chair slipcovers make a perfect hiding place for little boys!



This is the before picture....in my garage full of strollers and thrift shop furniture!



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Dining Room mini makeover

My husband got some major brownie points when he walked in the door the other day with a big bunch of pink cherry blossom branches for me! He also happened to have 2 new chalkboard erasers (that I'd been searching for since I'd painted the kitchen chalkboard wall!) and a delivery slip for a new stainless steel stove!! I did say *major* brownie points, right? :) It wasn't even my birthday!

I couldn't wait to get these beautiful flowering branches into my mercury glass vase, and onto my dining room table! The beautiful scent is so cheerful and "springy", and don't they just look so gorgeous?

I ordered these $14 dining room chair slipcovers from Walmart.com, but was so disappointed when they arrived because they were beige! Not the white I had imagined. So...off I went to the bleach bottle, and it worked its magic :) They're now a lovely ivory colour!

The two end chairs were a $3 thrift shop purchase and I'm in love! I had originally planned on painting them, but I decided I like them the way they are. I might rough them up a little bit, to give them a more faded look, but I just like how they add a little height to the table.








ps...I am not a fan of this IKEA glass-top table, but until something fabulously wooden comes along, I'm making do :)

This is my BLAH dining room before the mini-makeover....ugh.



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